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Palestinian/ Israeli talks in the US

AM Archive - Tuesday, 7 May , 2002 00:00:00

Reporter: John Shovelan

LINDA MOTTRAM: A week of intense negotiations between Middle East leaders and the Bush Administration is underway in Washington as Israel's government makes a bid to win US backing to marginalise the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

So far though the campaign has fallen on deaf ears because despite evidence of division on the issues, the White House is insisting that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon deal with Mr Arafat to find peace.

Mr Sharon claims the document is proof that Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority financed and co-ordinated the wave of suicide bombings that sparked Israel's military offensive but the Bush Administration was under whelmed.

It was all nothing new to Richard Boucher of the State Department who said Yasser Arafat's links to terrorism were already well known.

RICHARD BOUCHER: Involvement of elements in the Palestinian Authority with terrorism and terrorists have been stated quite clearly. We do ourselves a semi-annual report to the Congress on this subject so certainly it's been a topic on our minds and one that we've tried to address and will try to address.

JOHN SHOVELAN: Increasingly over the past few weeks, the Administration has characterised the Palestinian Authority under Mr Arafat as inept and corrupt. President Bush today repeated that dim view when he said his government shared the Israeli's government's disappointment with Mr Arafat.

GEORGE W. BUSH: They expressed disappointment in his ability to lead, I mean after all right before we had a security agreement done, a ship load of ammunition shows up that would probably be aimed at the Israeli citizens so there's a high level of disappointment.

JOHN SHOVELAN: Given the prevailing view, the Israeli Prime Minister's Washington campaign to have Mr Arafat sidelined and treated as irrelevant should be falling on fertile ground but instead it's the opposite.

A terrorist and corrupt Mr Arafat may be in the Administration's mind but the Israeli Prime Minister is being told he has no choice but to deal with Yasser Arafat.

Mr Sharon's blame game is getting short shrift. Still, in his relationship with the White House, Mr Sharon does lead a charmed existence. Tomorrow he'll see the President for the fifth time. He's suffered no sanctions for ignoring the President's repeated demands that he reverse course during last week's West Bank military offensive.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I am going to have a private conversation with Ariel Sharon and would rather that my conversation, what I'm going to tell him and discuss with him, be done and he be the first to know about it.

JOHN SHOVELAN: In a day of intense diplomacy while Mr Sharon was meeting with the Secretary of State and the Defence Secretary, the Saudi Foreign Minister and Jordanian King Abdullah were also meeting Bush Cabinet members. King Abdullah's wife, Queen Rania, a Palestinian, is also in Washington.

After talks at the State Department, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said his government was ready yet to endorse the US announced Mid East Peace Conference tentatively set for next month.